Perhaps the nation is not entirely lost. Certainly things look pretty bleak on the national scene, with President Obama just starting another four years and the Republicans staggering around in disarray and denial.

But there are also some indications that the Left’s stranglehold on the biggest source of its power — the Ivory Tower — may soon be loosened. For one, North Carolina’s new governor, Pat McCrory, dared to suggest on a recent talk show that gender studies should not be subsidized by taxpayers. “If you want to take gender studies that’s fine, go to a private school and take it,” he said. “But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.”

He continued, taking a shot at the highereducation establishment in general: “Some of the educational elite have taken over education, where we’re offering courses that have no chance of getting people jobs.”

His comments threw some faculty throughout the UNC system and liberal readers of the Raleigh News & Observer blog that reported on the governor’s comments into a tizzy. As can be expected, they went way overboard, suggesting that the governor wanted to do away with all liberal arts and turn the UNC system into a purely vocational school (which he denied). The system’s president was even chimed in to calm the rabble/faculty.

Elsewhere, the new president of Purdue University, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, also shows he understands higher education.